Eastern promise

It's called Le Chhakka and it stars a Mumbai import who really wanted to be a cricketer. Made for Rs 2 crore by Raj Chakrabarty and up for release soon, this film on street cricket epitomises the revolution that has come to Bengali cinema. Freeing itself from the trap of remakes and near copy-paste jobs of southern hits, Tollywood is morphing into its 21st century avatar, thanks to a new crop of filmmakers.

It all started with the box office success of atypical potboilers last year which not only won critical acclaim but also made money. Filmmakers switched to aggressive marketing and all-round Bengali content such as the upmarket Jara Brishtite Bhijechilo by national award-winner Anjan Das. This was followed by singer-director Anjan Dutt's Madly Bangali which sent out signals that the staid, conservative Bengali was willing to party. The film was about city youngsters trying to make it big on the music scene. Dutt returned again with Chalo Let's Go, a travelogue based on changing relationships starring Saswata Chatterjee, Parambrata Chatterjee and Churni Ganguly. Both of Dutt's films were made for between Rs 50 lakh and 70 lakh, and both were hits.

It's not just Dutt; other filmmakers are also laughing all the way to the bank. Like the director duo of Abhijit Guha and Sudeshna Roy whose glam doll Payel Sarkar-starrer Cross Connection ran for a record-breaking 10 weeks in central Kolkata. Roy says, "I had made a film, Teen Yaarir Kotha, two years back. It was a hat ke film but I could not get it released then. I wish it had been made now." Star-turned-producer Rituparna Sengupta is waiting for the release of Potadar Kirti later this year. The film, also starring Priyanshu Chatterjee from Mumbai and Firdaus from Dhaka, is about a don who falls in love with a movie star, and has been shot on a budget of Rs 80 lakh. "Nothing like this has ever been attempted before. The fact that the film is not heroine-centric, though I am the producer, shows I mean business," says Sengupta.

But how is the industry minting money while interest rates run high? Suvojit Roy, CEO of Orion Entertainment, a company which is set to release its own film Jodi Ekdin, says, "A producer can earn from a few verticals--theatre release, satellite rights, home video rights, music rights and overseas rights. In the case of a Rs 60 lakh film, the element of risk is minimal. For a film like Madly Bangali, it is easy to conclude that the producer made money from all the four sources put together." Jodi Ekdin, starring Indraneil Sengupta and Priyanka Sarkar, talks about new age relationships and is being made on a budget of Rs 65 lakh.

The big divide between urban and rural viewers, that widens every year, has stymied the growth of Bengali films. Mainstream films did not have takers in the city till now. Theatres, as many as 300 of them, had closed down in the past decade. Actor and executive producer Arindam Sil, 45, started the trend of such crossover films as the then executive producer of the Moxie Group with Bong Connection, a Rs 1-crore film starring Shayan Munshi, Raima Sen and Victor Banerjee in 2007. "This should have caught on a long time back, but at least it is happening now. The mindset of the youth is changing and the gap between the rural and urban psyches is narrowing," says Sil. He adds, "Compared to the 45 films that were made in Bengal in the past year, at least 80 releases are scheduled for this year."

Despite this, the involvement of corporate biggies has been minimal, barring a few exceptions like RPG Enterprises' Saregama which was behind arthouse films like Rituparno Ghosh's Khela in 2008 and Rabiranjan Moitra's debut Mantra in 2005, both not so successful. Thirteen new multiplexes have opened--eight in Kolkata, one each in Durgapur, Asansol and Darjeeling, and two in Siliguri. Ratnavali Dutta, assistant manager, marketing, Inox, says, "Last year, Antaheen by Aniruddha 'Tony' Roy Chowdhury was a landmark film. Content has become king again." Names are changing too; many sound distinctly "un-Bengali" now. Filmmaker Subrata Sen, the man who launched Konkona Sen Sharma in Ek Je Acchey Konnya in 2001, says, "Bengali films have been timelessly called stuff like Nyaya-Annaye and Vichar-Avichar. It had almost become an education in antonyms. All this is changing."

Birsa Dasgupta, 30-year-old grandson of filmmaker Harisadhan Dasgupta, would agree. His film, 033, made on a budget of Rs 1.5 crore, is being jointly produced by NDTV Imagine, its first film production, and the Moxie Group. Says Dasgupta, "033 is Kolkata's telephone code. In this film, it is also the name of a rock band and the film explores music tradition and how connections are made and broken through music." Swastika Mukherjee, 30, who plays the lead, has signed her eighth film in a matter of a few months, making her perhaps the first Tollywood heroine to do so.

The Midas touch is now in the hands of a few, the new movers and shakers of Tollywood such as actor Dev, director Raj Chakrabarty, composer Jeet Ganguly and the giant, Venkatesh Films (VF). Run by Shrikant Mohta and Mahendra Soni, VF has produced national award-winning films like Rituparno Ghosh's Chokher Bali and Raincoat. Chakrabarty, 34, started his career with TV five years ago. He got noticed with two top reality shows, Mirakkel Akkel and Dance Bangla and telefilms Teesta, Ek Chhut and Naba Basanto between 2005 and 2006. His first film Chirodini Tumi Je Amar in 2007 created history, grossing 15 times its budget of Rs 80 lakh. His next two films, the Rs 2-crore Challenge fetched 10 times that amount and Prem Amar, a Rs 1.5-crore film, fetched 20 times the money invested. Coming up is Le Chhakka. "My theme and story are very unconventional. I am using cricket to counter politics," he says.

One of the most significant movies made last year which set the mainstream ball rolling towards meaningful cinema was the Rs 1.5-crore Antaheen. It raked in profits that were twice the investment. In Antaheen, Roy Chowdhury, 44, brought Sharmila Tagore and Aparna Sen to work with Sen's husband, Kalyan Roy, in a cameo appearance. He is set to become producer this year and he has chosen Aveek Mukherjee, 42, cinematographer of Bunty Aur Babli, as his director for Ekti Tarar Khoje, which will see the return of Shayan Munshi and Prosenjit Chatterjee's wife, Arpita, to the big screen. "This film had 15 main characters playing an equal, pivotal role. Shabana Azmi said she thought it was at least a Rs 10-crore film because its look had fascinated her," says Roy Chowdhury.

Even Prosenjit, 50, has put his customary heroics on the backburner and will be seen in two films, Clerk (for the first time in Bengal, the posters of the film show the hero in a bathtub) and Lalan, a film based on the legendary folk singer. Kaushik Ganguly is ready with his film, Arekti Premer Golpo, on gay love made on a budget of Rs 1.5 crore. Bengali films seem to be well out of their musty closet but where they go from here is a story in the making.

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